Shambhala Training

The Shambhala teachings combine the deepest wisdom from an ancient tradition based in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and psychology with a completely contemporary body of practices in order to bring the deep benefits of meditation into everyday life. Grounded in mindfulness-awareness meditation, these practices include a wide array of meditation techniques, along with other transformative tools and teachings for waking up and being more present and compassionate in our life.

These teachings, available to anyone of any background or spiritual tradition, enable us to befriend our own minds and hearts, skillfully work with fear, build confidence, and ultimately provide a practical means to engaging our life – our relationships, work, play, family and friends – wholeheartedly.

Shambhala Training is a program of courses and weekend retreats offers an experiential overview of these practices, teachings, contemplative arts, and physical disciplines rooted in the ancient traditions of Shambhala and Vajrayana Buddhism. You are welcome to participate to the extent you wish. Sample a course or a weekend retreat—or a number of them—at any time. The full program is described below.

Program Outline

The Everyday Life series—five introductory courses, with five weekly classes in each;

Shambhala Weekends—five progressive weekend retreats;

Rigden: Unconditional Confidence—a culminating weekend retreat; and

The Sacred Path series—five “graduate level” weekend retreats.

The courses are interactive, communal, and create a learning environment where the teachings are intimate and relevant. Participants train in meditation and use inquiry, dialogue, and contemplation to integrate the teachings. The weekend retreats are opportunities to deepen meditation practice in a powerful environment that meets the needs of a workweek and family life.

The courses or weekend retreats are designed to be taken sequentially. For example, Shambhala Training participants progress from Level I to Level V in sequence. The most gradual introduction is to take the Meditation in Everyday Life course first.

The Everyday Life Series and the Shambhala Weekends

Anyone may take either the Everyday Life courses or the Shambhala Weekend Retreats exclusively. Taken together, the combination of courses and weekend retreats can profoundly deepen meditation as well as provide stability and continuity of practice.

Course 1: Meditation in Everyday Life

The grand kickoff! This 5-week course provides students with the basic tools and teachings for working with mindfulness meditation in everyday life. Open to the public

Weekend Retreat 1: Shambhala Training Weekend I

The other grand kickoff! Level I marks the starting point of the Shambhala path of weekend city retreats. This first level focuses on the profound technique of mindfulness meditation as a gateway to discovering intrinsic human potential and goodness. Open to the public

Weekend Retreat 2: Shambhala Training Weekend II

This weekend deepens mindfulness practice and explores how meditation can help us observe and understand the way we create a “cocoon” of habits to mask our fear and anxiety. If this sounds at all familiar, you’re not alone.

Prerequisite: Shambhala Training Weekend I

Course 2: Contentment in Everyday Life

This 5-week course provides a further exploration of mindfulness meditation, along with foundational Buddhist teachings. Cultivating contentment means difficult emotions (“grrrr!”) and the challenges of life (“You’re leaving me?”) can be met with gentleness, steadiness, and humor.

Open to the public

Weekend Retreat 3: Shambhala Training Weekend III

This weekend poses the question: What would it mean to step beyond our habitual anxieties and dare to relate to the world more directly, free of our habitual filters? We can expand our mindfulness and awareness into our whole life.

Prerequisite: Shambhala Training Weekend II

Course 3: Joy in Everyday Life

This course examines the Buddhist teachings on compassion and loving-kindness. If our normal mantra is “What about me?”, flipping that into “What about you?” (even just a little bit) can be profound and have wide-reaching implications in our own search for happiness. Contemplative techniques are introduced that help us to realize and strengthen our innate wisdom, compassion and joy.

Prerequisite: Open to the public, Contentment in Everyday Life recommended

Weekend Retreat 4: Shambhala Training Weekend IV

This weekend explores how we can engage our innate inquisitiveness to extend even further beyond the boundaries of the “cocoon”. Direct experience of the phenomenal world allows us to live with tremendous freedom and bravery.

Prerequisite: Shambhala Training Weekend III

Course 4: Fearlessness in Everyday Life

Soaring on the wings of hope and fear, we often crash and burn. What happens if we begin to see life as it is? This course explores the meaning of true fearlessness and incorporates a further exploration of the Buddhist teachings on mind and the nature of reality.

Prerequisite: Open to the public, Joy in Everyday Life recommended

Weekend Retreat 5: Shambhala Training Weekend V

What would it mean to trust our nature enough to fully let go into the present moment? Levels I-V present a complete path of mindfulness-awareness practice.

Prerequisite: Shambhala Training Weekend IV

Course 5: Wisdom in Everyday Life

This final 5-week course includes practical instructions for instantly transforming confused emotions and situations into wakefulness and effective action. No longer deterred (“Grrr!”) or depressed by obstacles (“You’re leaving me?”), we can include everything as part of the path.

Prerequisite: Contentment, Joy, and Fearlessness in Everyday Life courses

Rigden Weekend: Unconditional Confidence

Those who have completed the Shambhala Training weekends and weekly courses are invited to attend this culminating weekend, exploring how Contentment, Joy, Fearlessness and Wisdom lead to Unconditional Confidence. This final WOS I weekend introduces the Shambhala teachings of enlightened leadership.

Prerequisite: Shambhala Training Level V, Wisdom in Everyday Life

The Sacred Path Series

The Sacred Path series is a sequence of advanced Shambhala Training weekend retreats based on the unique inner teachings of Shambhala. You may start the Sacred Path series anytime after completing Rigden: Unconditional Confidence; however, we encourage you to attend Enlightened Society Assembly (ESA) before starting this series. Both the Sacred Path series and ESA are prerequisites for Warrior Assembly.

Weekend Retreat 1: Great Eastern Sun & Windhorse

Great Eastern Sun teaches us how to see the primordial energy and brilliance that is the basis of all that exists, and emphasizes the living context for building a sane society.

In Windhorse, one begins studying The Letter of the Black Ashe, a Shambhala text that gives the instruction for “raising windhorse,” which opens the heart and refreshes one’s confidence. The practice is a way to bring about skillful and heartfelt social engagement, enabling one to go forward in the midst of whatever challenges occur. Prerequisite: Rigden: Unconditional Confidence

Weekend Retreat 2: Drala

Through exploring the depth of perception, one engages the elemental and magical strength inherent in the world. The principle of drala refers to the sacred energy and power that exists when we step beyond aggression. Prerequisite: Windhorse

Weekend Retreat 3: Meek and Perky

“The four dignities” are further explored as a path and a process, which describe a person’s maturing and widening sphere of benevolent engagement in the world. The training in the dignities allows one to maintain awareness and delight at each stage.

Meek (the dignity of the Tiger) & Perky (the dignity of the Lion) are studied from the point of view of The Letter of the Black Ashe text and commentaries. Prerequisite: Drala

Weekend Retreat 4: Outrageous and Inscrutable

These fruitional dignities refer to the extraordinary skill of a practiced individual.

Outrageous (the dignity of the Garuda) & Inscrutable (the dignity of the Dragon) are studied from the point of view of The Letter of the Black Ashe text and commentaries. Prerequisite: Meek and Perky

Weekend Retreat 5: Golden Key

This weekend retreat is based on a Shambhala text that works with our relationship to the “material world” and our sense perceptions. It teaches the practice of enriching presence—the ability to instantly sense the inner wealth within oneself, phenomena, and the natural world. Prerequisite: Outrageous and Inscrutable

Supplemental Courses: Buddhist Studies

Those who have completed most or all of The Everyday Life Series are invited to our year of Buddhist Studies curriculum. These courses can be taken in conjunction with the Sacred Path Series of weekends (described below) or independently.

Course 1: Karma & The Twelve Nidanas

The notion of karma is central to an understanding of Buddhism. What is this energy of habitual patterns we have been developing for so long?

Recommended: Way of Shambhala Year 1 or other Buddhist Studies courses.

Course 2: Lojong: The Mind Training Path of Atisha

We live in complex relationships with other sentient beings. Often these relationships affect us emotionally. Lojong (literally, “mind training”) practice is a way to transform deep-seated patterns and bring compassion and clarity into those relationships.

Recommended: Way of Shambhala Year 1 or other Buddhist Studies courses.

Course 3: Life of the Buddha and the Development of Buddhism

Beginning with the life of the Buddha, this course will trace the development of Buddhism in India from the early schools to the mahayana schools and the vajrayana.

Recommended: Way of Shambhala Year 1 or other Buddhist Studies courses.

Course 4: Emptiness

This course is an in-depth exploration of the meaning of one of the most famous and yet difficult teachings of Buddhism – the Heart Sutra. What is ego? What is egolessness? Emptiness? View mixed with practice approach to this central issue.

Recommended: Way of Shambhala Year 1 or other Buddhist Studies courses.

Course 5: Journey Without Goal

An introduction to the principles of tantra, based on a series of lectures given by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche at The Naropa Institute in 1974. Class topics include: the tantric path; vajra nature and sacred world; the mandala principle and the five buddha families.

Recommended: Way of Shambhala Year 1 or other Buddhist Studies courses.

Course 6: Lineage & Devotion

An introduction to the principles of transmission and the student / teacher relationship as a central component to the study and practice of Shambhala Buddhism. Includes the life stories of the major figures of the three lineages which are brought together into Shambhala Buddhism – Nyingma, Kagyu and Shambhala – historically, and today.

Recommended: Way of Shambhala Year 1 or other Buddhist Studies courses.

To get started, check out the “Programs & Classes” page of our website to find the dates of our next Shambhala Training Level 1 weekend or Meditation In Everyday Life course. Remember, you don’t have to do the whole WOS series to get a good introduction to meditation practice. The best way forward is one step at a time.

Then What??

Dathün / Weekthün

Dathün (Tibetan for “month session”) is a one-month group meditation retreat lead by a senior teacher. You can attend for a full month, or by the week. It is open to anyone and is a very powerful introduction and deepening of mindfulness-awareness meditation. Each day consists of alternating periods of sitting and walking meditation with time for talks, study, and a short work period. Silence and functional talking are observed throughout the day. Meals are served in the shrine room oryoki-style, a practice of mindful eating taken from the Zen tradition. There is regular individual instruction with trained meditation instructors.

The Shambhala Meditation Center of New York offers a weekthün (one week of dathün), also known as the Urban Retreat: Seven Days of Mindfulness Meditation, every summer. Sky Lake Lodge in upstate New York offers a weekthün every winter, and there are four practice centers in the Shambhala mandala that offer dathüns at different times of the year (Karmê Chöling in Vermont, Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, Dechen Chöling in France, and Dorje Denma Ling in Nova Scotia).

Enlightened Society Assembly

The Enlightened Society Assembly (formerly Sutrayana Seminary) is a Shambhala mahayana program that emphasizes the view of the intrinsic goodness of all beings, practices that rouse bodhichitta and compassionate openness, and confident activity that engages fully in the world. In particular, living up to its name, this Assembly will focus on how we can create enlightened society on the spot, at home, in our city and nation, and wherever we go. Enlightened Society Assembly is a prerequisite for attending Warrior Assembly.

Warrior Assembly

During Warrior Assembly, students study the Shambhala text, The Golden Sun of the Great East, and its associated meditation practices. Warrior Assembly is a prerequisite for attending Sacred World Assembly (formerly Vajrayana Seminary).

Sacred World Assembly

This advanced Assembly (formerly Vajrayana Seminary) is designed to deepen students’ practice and understanding of the Buddhist and Shambhala teachings and to enter them into the vajrayana practices of the Shambhala Buddhist mandala. Enlightened Society Assembly and Warrior Assembly are prerequisites for this program.

Sacred World Assembly is led by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and authorizes students to begin the Shambhala ngöndro, the preliminary practices for receiving the Rigden Abhisheka, qualifying students into the deepest level of the Shambhala teachings.